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Beyond simple language structure are the aspects of figurative language: idioms, metaphors, similes, and other things that go beyond exact word meanings in a sentence. This trope is when a character will screw up such terms. This can range from using the wrong word in a term, to getting the whole meaning wrong.

This can even happen when the non-native speaker tries to use idioms from that character's language, and it loses its meaning in the translation.

In reality, it is not unusual for this to be caused by literal translation from a known language, such as "having one's ass circled in noodles" (though, simple misunderstandings are also a frequent cause of this trope). But in TV Land, it's more often done by taking an existing expression from a language/culture different from the character's and replacing its words with synonyms from the same language, something highly improbable in real life, but is excused due to Rule of Funny.

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The misspeaker isn't always the sole butt of the joke, though; often, such gags highlight how ridiculous and/or arbitrary the idioms are in the first place. Why can something be "a piece of cake" or "as easy as pie", but vice versa sounds utterly ridiculous?

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Examples:

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A commercial for IBM's Watson has two sportscasters talking about a player's skill, and one asks Watson for his statistical take. The computer says the player can hit a jump shot "from a densely populated urban area". One of them clarifies that he means "from way downtown," and Watson says he's still learning

Angol Mois of Sgt. Frog has a habit of appending her sentences with yojijukugo (Japanese idioms composed of four kanji characters) that are almost, but not quite, appropriate for the situation. One episode has her taking tuition for this.

Hermes, a talking motorcycle from Kino's Journey, seems to have this problem a lot (examples include "Vanity is not for the sake of Mothers" and "When in Rome do as tigers do")

It also qualifies as Totally Radical, having been the cool way to speak during the late Bush-/early Clinton-era. Not so sure it fits here as a result, though.

Nia in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Sure, she rejected Simon when he asked her for marriage, because he wanted to become "one with her" and two people can't be physically merged Which is funny considering that her English VA (pre-time skip) is the same as Starfire mentioned below.

In Alan Moore's comic Tom Strong, a Russian science hero, as well as Tesla's volcano-man boyfriend Val, constantly mess up all sorts of figures of speech. The titular character was raised in a gravity chamber - the Russian refers to it as the "tank of seriousness".

Thug: This is a crime family. A syndicate. You're the top dog on the pyramid and we're all the little fish on the bottom rung of the totem pole.

Comic Strips

This is one of the main gags in The Troubles of Dictionary Jaques. In one strip he interprets "butt in" as meaning to hit people with his head rather than simply interrupting them, despite the situation calling for the latter usage of "butt".

Fan Works

Subverted in The Dragon King's Temple. Over the first several chapters, Zuko and Toph repeatedly and increasingly urgently ask SG 1 to "let them see sunlight". SG 1, due to encountering this trope frequently among offworlders, assume that this is just a metaphor for feeling confined. It isn't until Zuko collapses and goes into a seizure that they realize that Zuko will actually die if cut off from Sun for too long.

Film  Live-Action

Officer Lenina Huxley of Demolition Mancommits an idiomatic screwup practically every minute, most of them having to do with her love of 20th Century American culture. Even considering the mass sanitation of culture inflicted upon the future Los— ahem, San Angelinos by their Moral Guardian mayor, many of her malapropisms simply defy belief.

Huxley: Why don't you take your job, and shovel it. John Spartan: "Take this job and shovel it"? Close enough.

In 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a Russian cosmonaut says, "It's a piece of pie," whereupon an American astronaut corrects him: "Cake." Later, the same cosmonaut says, "It's as easy as cake," only to be corrected once again: "Pie."

"I have to go to the jack." "I am sick of wearing the dress in this family." [Howard] "Don't tell me its laser is still armed." [Ben] "Bimbo." "Keep that power on or I'll beat the living headlights out of you!" "Newton Crosby, let us break wind!" Meaning he wants them run away.

However, Johnny 5 does exhibit this in Short Circuit 2 after he is brutally attacked by the bad guys...

In Back to the Future and sequels, Biff does this a lot. His most frequent is "Make like a tree and get outta here." And in the second film, he uses "That's as funny as a screen door on a battleship," to which Marty quips from out of earshot, "Screen door on a submarine, you dork." English isn't his second language though, he's just a dumb side of beef. Even his older self gets fed up with his butcherings of idioms:

In A Bug's Life, the ants don't initially know that the "warriors" recruited by Flik are actually circus performers, and the circus bugs don't initially know that the ants are looking for protection from grasshopper extortionists. This results in confusion on both ends when Francis says that they'll "knock them dead": the ants just heard a promise that the circus bugs are going to protect them and deal with Hopper and his goons for good, while the circus bugs have just said that they're going to put on an amazing show for them and the grasshopper "guests."

Literature

Occurs often in the Discworld. Pratchett, as a rule, is very, very fond of overanalysing idioms and taking things literally.

Ankh-Morporkians, in particular, are infamous for their literal-mindedness when it comes to metaphors, and former ruler Olaf Quimby II even wrote a law requiring all metaphors to be able to be made literal. The law still exists, and the current ruler enforces it in order to keep that sort of people occupied. In Quimby's memory, the Morporkians still say "the pen is mightier than a sword" with the addition, "but only if the pen is very sharp and sword very small". Apparently, the king had demanded an unusually smart poet to prove the phrase on himself.

Captain Carrot is a six-foot-tall dwarf who has inherited his (adopted) race's understanding of such things as irony ("sort of like iron"). Upon first arriving in Ankh-Morpork in Guards! Guards!, when instructed to "charge these men" he rushes at them wielding an axe in each hand and screaming the ancient Dwarf battlecry "NEE-NAW-NEE-NAW". In the same book, he's told to "throw the book at him" and the thrown book smacks the target on the head, knocking him over a ledge to his Disney Villain Death. He seems to have mostly gotten over this in later appearances.

Also the rogue Auditor Myria LeJean (a.k.a. Unity).

Myria: Oh. They [Wienrich & Boettcher] make chocolate? Susan: Does a bear poo in the woods? [Lady LeJean looked thoughtful for a moment.]Myria: Yes, I believe that most varieties do indeed excrete as you suggest, at least in the temperate zones, but there are several that- Susan: I meant to say that, yes, they make chocolate.

The Auditors in general take this trope Up to Eleven. For instance, when asked "Can I offer you a drink?" an Auditor will respond that yes, it does believe you are capable of making that request.

From Thief of Time, an exchange between Wen the Eternally Surprised and not-too-bright apprentice Clodpool.

Even Death himself runs into this trope. In Reaper Man, upon being told that "diamonds are a girl's best friend", he sets off to rob a particularly large one from the Lost Temple of Doom of Offler the Crocodile God. It leads to some shenanigans with the High Priest, the other priest who was not high, and Indiana Jones jokes.

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill of Animorphs: Being an alien, metaphors don't really work well with him. He has a tendency to take instructions literally, which, combined with him being in public in human morph, makes for some very funny situations. (He also has a notable fascination with pronouncing things, as in his original form he has no mouth and communicates telepathically. Hence the repeated syllables.)

Ax: Spicy, right? This flavour-or-or-is called spicy? Rachel: Yeah, it's spicy. Hot, too. Ax: Yes, the temperature is hot. Hot-tuh. Rachel: No, I meant the flavour is hot. The temperature too, though. Skip it. Ax: Skip? Rachel: Uh, no. Forget it. Drop it. No sooner were those last words out of my mouth than I regretted them. Ax promptly dropped the container of refried beans he'd been holding. It landed wrong side down on the table.

Another personal favorite with Ax, when he attends a school dance:

Marco: That girl is warm for your form. She wants your body. [(Later]Ax: I would like to shuffle my artificial hooves to the music with you. But you cannot have my body. My bo. Dee.

Perhaps "she wants your body" was not the best phrase to use in a series where the villains are literal body-snatchers in the first place.

In the book 2010, one of the American astronauts makes a joke about how the tiny quarters are more like sixteenths. Naturally, it has to be explained.

Dragonback: Draycos' response to metaphors is practically a running gag.

Draycos: Pardon? Jack: Skip it.

You'd think Draycos would catch on a little quicker, being a poet and all.

The alien character Eve in the Blaster Master book by F.X. Nine often mangles popular catch phrases. Jason usually figures them out quickly, though, and corrects her.

Eve: We're about to become Social Studies! Jason: ...you mean History.

The eponymous main character of the children's series Amelia Bedelia is very literal minded. If you ask her to dress the chicken, you will receive a fowl wearing a very cute dress. If you ask her to watch for the fork in the road, she will quite diligently keep an eye out for said utensil lying in the roadway. And so on.

Don Quixote: Subverted with the Biscayan, who is another of the many Victimized Bystanders Don Quixote will find in his adventures. He talks exclusively in this fashion when he engages with Don Quixote in a duel to the death. Even with that, Don Quixote understands him perfectly:

One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to El Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, "Begone, caballero, and ill go with thee; by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach, slayest thee as art here a Biscayan." Don Quixote understood him quite well, and answered him very quietly, "If thou wert a knight, as thou art none, I should have already chastised thy folly and rashness, miserable creature." To which the Biscayan returned, "I no gentleman!I swear to God thou liest as I am Christian: if thou droppest lance and drawest sword, soon shalt thou see thou art carrying water to the cat: Biscayan on land, hidalgo at sea, hidalgo at the devil, and look, if thou sayest otherwise thou liest."

Van Helsing: Well, the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards, as you say.

The Dresden Files: The Fae are prone to this. Asking one to "watch my back" will probably have them ask you to lean forward in your chair so they can see it. Particularly old wizards have been known to do it too, as a result of age-inflicted cultural disassociation. When "Drinking the Kool-Aid" is used, Arthur Langtry needs to be reminded of the Jonestown mass suicide, which happened in his lifetime.

In Rihannsu: The Empty Chair the Enterprise crew is working closely with a renegade Romulan crew. The other side has been provided with universal translators but at one point one of the Enterprise crew uses an idiom that the UT apparently translated literally, which confuses the Romulan. Uhura complains that she's going to have to adjust the UT's idiom filter again.

The Flight Engineer: The Independent Command uses a similar gag with an English-to-Fibian computerized translator (it's the first time the Commonwealth and the Fibians have had peaceful interactions with each other). One of the humans asks the Fibians to "cut us some slack" in the event of any social faux pas, which mightily confuses the Fibian ("How does one cut looseness?"). Peter Raeder calls it like it is: one of those expressions that has long been divorced from what it originally referred to.

Journey to Chaos: Annala is such a bookworm that she can use the metaphors from many and diverse cultures correctly. She understands the cultural underpinnings for them and uses them in the proper context. This comes in handy during the global politicking of Mana Mutation Menace.

The Cosmere: Most worldhoppers have access to a set of Connection effects that let them speak the native language of whatever region they're in. However, if the worldhopper isn't careful, the effect can end up translating their metaphors literally.

Mathew Sykes's last name translated in the Newcomer language to a contraction of 'excrement' and 'cranium', so every time he introduced himself to a Newcomer they laughed when he gave his name as 'Detective Sykes'.

[after Leonard strikes out with Penny]Raj: You need to get back on the whores. Howard: "Horse". The phrase is "get back on the horse". Raj: Dude, that's disgusting!

Baldrick (from season 2 onward) and George (from seasons 3 & 4) of Blackadder. Particularly notable since they are native English speakers, albeit stupid ones.

Temperance "Bones" Brennan, when she gets over her "I don't know what that means" phase and starts guessing at what's right:

Local cop: Is she serious? Brennan: Serious as a gas attack. Booth: Heart attack, Bones.

Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer often has problems understanding our human jokes and references, and takes great pleasure in pointing out that fact. In flashback we find out she was like that before she became a demon too.

Doctor Who: Happens frequently with Sontarans, who being a Proud Warrior Race don't really get most metaphors. Case in point, in one episode a human working with some Sontarans enthuses that what they're doing is cool. Cue blank looks from the Sontarans ("Is the temperature significant?").

Farscape, particularly Aeryn saying "She gives me a woody" when she meant willies. This is also an instance of the series overall playing with the trope; the characters carry Translator Microbes and so most of the time the alien characters use perfect idioms, as they're really just speaking in their own language and the microbes cause the hearer (and audience) to hear an expression with the intended meaning. Aeryn doesn't start mangling metaphors until she begins to fall in love with John Crichton, a lost human astronaut—causing John (and the audience) to realize that she's actually trying to learn English (and to fervently wish she'd stop.)

In an episode of Foyle's War, The Mole, an Englishman posing as a French refugee with a thick accent, seems not to know the expression "throw your cap into the ring"; Foyle has already seen him finish an English cryptic crossword puzzle, so what he's giving away is that he wants people to think he's less fluent than he is.

"You are either with us, or the highway! Yes, yes, even I know that was wrong, but I was on a roll."

Happened to the Monty Python crew in real life, when they did an episode in German for Germans, learning it by rote. The phrase "we are sitting you down and scaring the shit out of you in Bavaria" caused disgusted reactions from the German crew. They have no such idiom, so the translation was literally "we are causing you to involuntarily excrete on your chairs in Bavaria".

Ziva's actress Cote de Pablo, a native Spanish speaker, falls prey to this on occasion as well, notably during an interview with co-star Michael Weatherly.

Cote: ...but then you took me home and we totally clicked... Michael: That sounded bad. Cote: You totally... Michael: I drove you home. Cote: Okay, you drove me home and... Michael: Your dad's gonna see this...

In Sliders, after Quinn finds his brother Colin, who's been living in a technologically-backward world, Colin starts learning about modern culture and slang words. So, when he first learns the slang meaning of "cool", he immediately starts extrapolating and assumes that "hot" means "bad". Rembrandt then further confuses him by explaining that both "hot" and "bad" also mean "good".

Hammond: We've all been holding our breath down here. Teal'c: That is not wise. [...]O'Neill:Lucy, I'm home!Teal'c: I am not Lucy. O'Neill: I know that. It's a reference to an old TVnever mind, open the door. Teal'c: I will summon the doctor. O'Neill: No, come on. I'm fine. I'm back to being myself. Just open up. Teal'c: I cannot be certain that you are back to being yourself. You referred to me as "Lucy". [...]Teal'c: Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up.

O'Neill lampshades this during an argument about whether or not to help an alien race in the middle of a war by trading heavy water for alien technology.

Daniel: Their whole world is in flames, and we're offering gasoline. How is that "help"? Teal'c: We are in fact offering water. O'Neill: Thank you! Daniel: I was speaking metaphorically. O'Neill: Well, stop it. It's not fair to Teal'c.

Teal'c eventually starts making jokes about this himself:

O'Neill: Teal'c, you really don't have to stay here. Teal'c: Undomesticated equines could not remove me. O'Neill: Wild horses, Teal'c, the saying is... was that a joke? Teal'c:[self-satisfied smirk]

The Asgard fit, too.

O'Neill: "I full well expected the other shoe to drop eventually." Thor: "We can only hope that this will be the last footwear to fall. "

Vala too.

Lt. Colonel Mitchell: Well, you've got to open big, catch people's attention, make them think the whole thing is going to be jam-packed. Vala: Ooh, I love jam. [Mitchell, Jackson and Carter look at her]Vala: Oh, I get it. It's yet another playful twist on words in your "earth" language. [A little later, when she is asked what she thinks of the script.]Vala: Well, it certainly seems to be packed full of jam!

Specifically lampshaded and avoided by Vala in "The Pegasus Project":

Lt. Colonel Mitchell: Like a kid up all night on Christmas Eve. Vala: I thought we imposed a moratorium on cultural references I wouldn't understand.

And later in the same episode.

Rodney McKay: The size of a gate isn't arbitrary. It'd be like putting together a Saint Bernard and a chihuahua. Vala: And the problem with that would be? Rodney McKay: Well it's obviously a question of... oh, I get it, you're mocking me Vala: No, I'm not from Earth. I honestly didn't get the reference.

And Bra'tac

O'Neill: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Bra'tac: No, the bridge is too well-guarded.

Double Subversion later when Bra'tac uses the same metaphor ... in the wrong context.

Sheppard: Well, that's why we're a team, like the Fantastic Four. [Ronon and Teyla stare at him]Sheppard: It's a comic book where superheroes fight crime and stuff. See, I'd be Mr Fantastic, Ronon would be The Thing, McKay would be the Human Torch... Sheppard [to Teyla]: You'd be the Invisible Woman. Teyla: I am not invisible. Sheppard: No. No, and McKay's not a human torch. Teyla: Well, how come you get to be Mr. Fantastic? Sheppard: Because he was the leader and I'm the...

This is lampshaded in the pilot, as Picard asks "Data, how can you be programmed as a virtual encyclopedia of human information without knowing a simple word like 'snoop'?"

A good case occurs in the finale, a Time Trouble episode back to the beginning (among others...), where Data overhears another character discuss "burning the midnight oil." He not only suggests it's a bad idea — it would set off fire-suppression systems — but, once he learns what it means, he then suggests to Picard that to fix a certain system, he would need to "ignite the midnight petroleum."

In the episode "Data's Day" he mentions that he "may be pursuing an untamed ornithoid without cause." It takes Dr. Crusher a few seconds to realize he's talking about a wild goose chase.

In the Star Fleet Academy younger-readers books, it's revealed that Data wasn't at the Academy an hour before a fellow cadet suggested he "pull up a chair" and he proceeded to do just that — pull the chair off the floor — much to the amusement of his fellow cadets. Despite the chair in question being boltedtothe floor at the time.

In one of the later EU novels, Data admits to Wesley that he'd been doing this on purpose from the very beginning, in an effort to understand human psychology better.

Castiel from Supernatural. But then again, Angels of the Lord can probably get a pass for being a bit too literal minded. (He learns to do a great deadpan eventually.)

Oddly enough, Castiel seems to be the only angel to suffer from this problem. The other angels - especially Zachariah - seem to enjoy using metaphors and pop culture references. Even Lucifer, who has been trapped in the pits of Hell for thousands of years, uses references he probably shouldn't be familiar with.

It may have to do with how much mining of the vessel's mind they do. Zachariah and Lucifer are both completely willing to rip through whoever-that-is and Nick, while Cas appears to have put Jimmy to sleep for pretty much the whole time he was wearing him. Although he does have a lot of his mannerisms, we could put that down to muscle memory...or, you know, Misha Collins not being a godlike actor.

Demons just out of Hell appear to rely on this regularly—for example, the seven deadly sins in the start of season three pull things like "Here's Johnny!" while smashing down a door, when they haven't been out since the sixteenth century. And there isn't much to choose between, say, Zachariah and Crowley, so we can infer similar technique.

That Uriel is the 'funniest angel in the garrison' when there was Balthazar, and above them the kind of mind that makes of fake identities for two guys named Winchester and surnames them Smith & Wesson, really does say something weird about angel mentality. I'm not even sure what.

Latka: I could eat a dog. Elaine: It's "horse". I could eat a horse. Latka: Yecch.

In the first season of Violetta, Francesca, who is Italian, replaces words in figurative expressions with similarly sounding ones as a Once an EpisodeRunning Gag. When her friends correct her, she doesn't understand it.

This becomes a plot point in an episode of The West Wing. In preparation for a meeting between Bartlet and President Chigorin of Russia, Sam has a meeting with two aides of Chigorin's who are reasonably fluent in English, but keep needing idioms and other curveballs explained to them. At the end of the meeting, one of them produces a statement for a joint press conference between the presidents, saying that both nations want to "stem the tide" of nuclear proliferation and should start with themselves. The aide claims that the statement was his idea and that he wrote it himself. Sam realizes that he wouldn't know the expression "stem the tide," and correctly concludes that Chigorin wrote it and sent it along to the meeting as a message to Bartlet.

Karl Pilkington on The Ricky Gervais Show is often quizzed on metaphors, which he either doesn't understand or misinterprets completely. For instance, he believes "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" means "Don't chuck stuff about."

It's not just Turians who have a problem. It's actually a major problem with humans in the galactic society: because they talk in a lot of slang, shorthand, and metaphors, other species are utterly perplexed by this manner of speech. For example, an asari socialite in the Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC:

Mass Effect: Andromeda: Angaran teammate Jaal often finds himself frustrated by idiomatic speech, as the auto-translators between Milky Way languages and the angaran language Selesh are not as up-to-date just yet.

*Hoorb!* A flesh person? The one whose air-sound is Dillo's inner core flies at the opportunity to put air-sounds into head-holes! Then you will make air-sounds back! Would you like to hear how Dillo's home planetary groupings were soiled into dusts before he came to the City of Heroes? We will be making tiny-words! How wonderful!

It runs in the family, it seems: In the Blood in the Water comic, his sister Zhanna thinks assaulting a base "with extreme prejudice" means "be racist at them". Then again, Soldier seemingly made that mistake before.

General Sargas Ruk from Warframe is so focused on making his threats gory that he can't seem to decide if he's talking metaphorically or not.

"Now we crush the greedy milk from their skulls!"

Almost everything L'cirufe (or just L if it please you) says in Xenoblade Chronicles X, mainly because he's self-taught to speak other species' languages and not relying on Mira's universal translation magic.

"It's a horse-eat-horse world!" "Truly, we are on the ninth cloud of seventh heaven!"

He even has a tendency to "correct" other people's metaphors:

Phog: Well, that one gave me pins and needles. L: No, no, no. It had you on the pins and the needles.

Ann: "Hopefully with twoCardians on our side this episode we'll succeed some way." Alan: "I'm not so sure. Like the humans say, I would not hold my dick about it." Ann: "...No. You... you mean 'breath.' Hold your breath." Alan: "...Why would I hold my breath if I could hold my dick?"

Western Animation

Starfire in Teen Titans. Poor girl doesn't know when "People are NOT talking about shovels".

Omi: Let us remove the lead! Kimiko: [It's] "Get the lead out". Omi: That too.

Everyone, friends and enemies alike, have moments of confusion from the little monk.

Omi: What goes in circles, goes the other way in circles. Wuya: Somebody translate!? I'll be up all night! Clay: I think he means "What goes around comes around." Wuya: Oh please...that wasn't even close.

In one episode the villain Jack Spicer had to translate one of Omi's double-jointed sentences for everyone else.

Omi:[to Wuya] The jig is down, you are at the top of your rope, spoon over that Wu! [very, very, VERY long pause and everyone is looking around at each other waiting for someone to say something then cuts to Jack with his finger on his chin thinking]Jack: Oh, oh I got it! The jig is up, you are at the end of your rope, fork over the Wu! [does a little victory dance and opens his jacket which has a ribbon that says "Evil Genius"]

Despite all of the main cast inexplicably speaking English, Wheeler frequently had to correct Linka for this type of mistake in the earlier episodes, while the other characters seem to get them fine, despite not growing up in the US either.

There was one episode where Ma-Ti got into Sam Spade type detective novels and tried to use 1940's slang, only to get it all mixed up.

The toddlers in Rugrats do this a lot. For instance, Tommy says "back to Norman" instead of "back to normal", and Angelica interprets "break a leg" as "break some eggs."

Exile from Road Rovers is constantly defined by his mangling of the English language.

Exile: Easy as cake. Like taking pie from a baby!

Archer does this often. The translator in "Heart of Archness" in particular cites the problem with translating idioms. Also: "Phrasing!"

The Simpsons: In "Lemon of Troy", Bart, before leaving to take revenge on Shelbyville kids who stole Springfield's lemon tree, tells Marge he's going to "teach some kids a lesson". She thinks he's going to become a tutor.

In season 2 of BoJack Horseman, after the original director is fired, a very bland yet obedient and uncontroversial director named Abe is hired to direct the Secretariat biopic BoJack is starring in. After BoJack expresses concerns over the quality of the production, Abe reassures him that they "ain't making Casablanca". Naturally, BoJack thinks he meant the film is not intended to be good, but Abe meant it literally (as in, they are not making the actual movie Casablanca), for whatever reason. When BoJack criticizes the film, Abe becomes livid.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "School Spirit", Marco tells Star that the Silver Hill Warriors "slaughters" the Echo Creek Possums every year, but she ends up believing their football game is to be a bloody battle. It is only after she booby traps the football field to strike the Warriors that Star discovers it's the name of a team and that "slaughter" meant "badly defeat".

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